


To Bee or Not to Bee

by cefyr



Category: Blandings Castle - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Beekeeping, Bees, Gen, Painting, Portraits, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8880223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cefyr/pseuds/cefyr
Summary: A harrowing tale of Bees, Paintings and Girls with Ideas, with a small but crucial role played by the Empress of Blandings showing her usual stunning form.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omphale23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/gifts).



> As for the title, I apologize for nothing :D

Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, was troubled. His was not a mind where serious thought intruded easily, but once in a while some stray word or phrase caught his attention and, like a rather dim bulldog with its teeth stuck in a postman's trouser leg, refused to let go. This time, he was pondering the language skills of our most humble friend, the bee.

But wait! I hear you say. Is it not a bit presumptuous of the author to start _in medias res_ , expecting the reader to catch up on their own time, as it were? Would it not be better to simply present the events in order of their appearance, rather than trying to create an artificial sense of urgency? To which I would merely wish to reply that anyone who acquired a sense of urgency from reading an account of Lord Emsworth's cognitive processes would be more easily helped by lying down in a quiet room with a cold compress over the eyes, rather than by trying their hand at literary criticism.

Nevertheless, it would certainly be unhelpful of the writer to keep any pertinent facts from the interested reader, and thus we may as well step back a bit from our main character and take in the wider view. For the Earl of Emsworth was not wrinkling his brow in a vacuum. Around him, birds were singing, bees were buzzing, and meticulously tended flower beds were filled to the brim with blossoms of all shapes and sizes, tempting man and beast alike with their colours and scents. In short, the garden surrounding Blandings Castle was enjoying a splendid summer's day, and it was difficult to imagine anyone reacting to it with anything but true and honest joy.

Having taken a quick look at the surroundings, we may now return to the bees, who, as was noted earlier, were buzzing around the flowers. Compared to these energetic insects, Lord Emsworth might as well have been asleep. And yet, he was worried. Was this, he asked himself, a happy congregation of bees? Were they buzzing contentedly, or might a keen bee enthusiast notice some dissonance in their sound, some false note in the music, that indicated stress amongst the troops? This worried him, because he liked to think of himself as a benevolent landlord to man and beast alike. 

His most glorious success in this respect was of course the Empress of Blandings, reigning champion in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show, and an all-round splendid specimen of porcine excellence. In her, Lord Emsworth saw the result of years of hard toil and study by him and his various pig men. Most of the work involving elements of toiling had naturally fallen to the pig men, while he had done his bit by burying himself in the library with a glass of port and _The Care of the Pig_ , as densely packed a mine of pig-related information that anyone could ask for. From this wise division of labour had grown that positively spherical flower in the buttonhole of Blandings Castle that was the Empress.

There was, however, more to the animal world than pigs, a fact of which Lord Emsworth was by now all too aware. Having studied the black-and-yellow striped flock of bees until his head began to buzz all on its own, he was still no closer to solving the mystery of their moods. Here, all his knowledge of pigs counted for nothing, and this bothered him deeply. Moreover, he had laid this problem before the booted feet of McAllister, the castle's gardener, earlier that morning and received nothing but a Scottish 'Mphm' in return. Normally this would have allayed his fears, McAllister having taken good care of the gardens for many years while restricting himself to one grunted Scottish syllable at a time, but these new tenants might very well be English bees who had never ventured across the border, and there was no guarantee that they would understand a word the man said.

At this point, the amiable peer's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of his sister, Lady Constance Keeble. Normally, her sudden appearance would have given him at the very least a small pang of anxiety, but this time he could not recall a single subject on which they were currently disagreeing, and so it was with an only slightly distracted smile that he greeted her, his thoughts still mainly concerning bees, their treatment in sickness and in health.

'Connie! Out walking in the garden, eh?'

Lady Constance indicated that Yes, she was in the garden, and she was walking.

'I see,' said her brother, looking around as if he had never seen the place before. 'Quite. Capital, capital. Lovely gardens. Very pleasant. Well-kept, and all that. McAllister tells me the chrysanthemums are looking very promising. Very promising indeed. I have been watching the bees.'

Lady Constance managed, through a superhuman effort, to refrain from telling her brother to stop dithering. 'I am actually very busy today,' she said. 'I merely came by to ask you to dress in something slightly less offensive to human sensibilities when you come in to dinner. Jane has just telegraphed that she will most likely join us later in the evening, and you cannot appear in that coat in front of visitors.'

'Visitors?' said Lord Emsworth. 'What visitors?'

'The visitor,' said Lady Constance, 'of whom I told you a moment ago. Her name is Jane Campbell, and she is the daughter of a friend of your sister Dora. She has come here to paint your portrait. Your brother Galahad did say that he had heard of her, but luckily, that was not discouraging enough, compared to her artistic qualifications, to make me reconsider employing her.' 

Lord Emsworth glanced at the sun, wondering why its rays seemed to have dimmed although the skies were clear. 'I don't need to be painted,' he grumbled. 'There's a perfectly serviceable portrait of me in the gallery already. There's no need to have another one. It will make the place look crowded and untidy, as if someone has lost count of the number of earls around here.'

'That portrait was painted when you were five years old. It is hardly an accurate likeness of you anymore.'

'Well, I still don't want another one. Outdated things, portraits. These days, anyone with a camera can do it better, or so I'm told. They can even make them move,' noted Lord Emsworth, who normally cared little for modern inventions but was willing to venture at least as far into the realms of futuristic technology as to imagine a motion picture camera (introduced in the late 19th century) if it might get him out of having to spend long hours sitting still, looking serious and wearing a top hat.

Lady Constance was not convinced. Indeed, from the way she spoke of the matter, it sounded as if only direct interventions from divine powers had managed to keep Blandings Castle from crumbling into dust, sucked into that dark void in the portrait gallery caused by the lack of an artistic representation of the head of the family hanging on the southern wall. No eager listener within earshot would have been in the slightest doubt as to her stance when it came to up-to-date family portraits. It was evident that she saw a grave need that, for once, could only be filled by her brother wearing gloves and spats in front of a girl with an easel and, possibly, a fetchingly artistic beret.

At last, as her brother seemed as unbending as ever on the subject, Lady Constance switched from a commanding tone to a cajoling one. 'You might find it is not as disagreeable as you think,' she claimed. Jane is a very pleasant girl; you'll like her. She is not at all like other artists, her mother tells me.'

'Jane? Who is Jane?'

Lady Constance did not grit her teeth, but only because her governesses had been very strict about that sort of thing in her youth. 'Jane Campbell is the daughter of a friend of your sister Dora. I told you this five minutes ago. Jane is coming here to stay, since she has nothing else to do with her time, and I have asked her to paint your portrait while she is here. In return, I shall be able to lend my name to her recommendations, thereby strengthening her reputation as a serious artist.'

'Sent here by her mother, eh?' concluded Lord Emsworth, showing a sudden and surprising glimpse of intelligence. 'Girls often are,' he noted. 'Not by this girl's mother, of course, unless she has a great many children, which is uncommon nowadays, I think. For the mother, I mean, not the girl. Anyway, I'm sure somebody have noted if all the girls coming here had the same last name. People notice these things, you see. You can't hide it from them. I wonder if she paints pigs.'

Lady Constance took a deep breath and wondered what she had done to deserve this. 'Don't be ridiculous, Clarence,' she said. 'Of course she doesn't paint pigs; no reasonable painter would, and especially not your pig. Jane is a nice, quiet girl, and as she is still quite young, naturally her family is quite keen on her making no ...undesirable connections. She is the distant relation of Sir Robert Peel, you know, so she can't be allowed to make a fool of herself over some young man she may meet in town. While she is here, she will paint your portrait. That is all.'

'Sir Robert Peel, you say?' said Lord Emsworth, his gaze turning inwards to prune an ancient family tree. 'I had no idea. Peculiar things, relations. You can't really know about them unless people tell you. Except for when they have the same last name, of course, like this girl and her sisters. It's a Scottish name, you know, Campbell. Tough people, the Scots. Possibly on account of the weather. Very independent as well. They have to be, I suppose, living so far up North. Just look at the Battle of Bannockburn. I remember being taught at school...'

'Never mind what you were taught at school,' said Lady Constance, barrelling like a very determined infantry battalion through her brother's attempt at meteorological climate theory. 'I merely wanted you to know that Jane is coming here tonight, so that you might dress accordingly. I am so glad I didn't have to rely on Galahad to find some artist of his acquaintance. Artists can be so unreliable, you know, and Dora tells me that Jane is very dependable. She will make a good wife. Young men nowadays do seem to need their wives to act as a steadying influence.'

'Yes, yes, quite, I'm sure you are quite right. A steadying influence, very true. I wonder if she knows McAllister. He tells me he was born in Aberdeen, or possibly Glasgow; I've forgotten the exact place, but I am sure he mentioned it. I shall have to ask him again some time.'

If Lady Constance's governesses had seen her at this point, the chronicler of this tale is sure that they would have understood the slight gritting of her teeth which she could not hold back. Some situations must excuse a breach of even the strictest enforced etiquette rules.

 

* * *

 

Jane Campbell, whose family originally came not from Aberdeen or Glasgow but from a small village near Edinburgh, was a steadying influence only in the way that a standing stone is a steadying influence—that is, a picturesque part of the landscape that you can hold on to if you happen to get a pebble in your shoe and need to balance on the other foot in order to pick it out, but mostly not actively helpful in any way. She was the sort of girl that teachers like to call 'nice and quiet', which happens to be another description that would work just as well on a megalith. She generally gave the impression of having Hidden Depths somewhere, but she did it in such a nice way that one felt it would be impolite to try and find them.

Lord Emsworth, having at last been intimidated into wearing a somewhat less worn and threadbare suit, took the earliest opportunity after dinner to escape into the garden. His first stop was of course the Empress' sty, but after stopping to scratch her back and reassure himself that her shape was as rotund as ever, he made his way over to the newly installed beehive out on the lawn to see how the members of the local pollinating workforce were doing. He was not surprised to find Jane Campbell there—she had been very appreciative of the garden on her arrival, and she had given the Empress a potato. He felt that she was of distinctly sound mind, and if it were not for the business of the portrait, he would have liked her.

'Ah, there you are!' he said cordially, reminding himself that as a peer of the realm, he was expected to act with quiet dignity even in the most trying of times. 'Come to make some character studies?' he continued, vaguely recalling that this was something that artists did.

Miss Campbell looked slightly startled, as if she had not expected to be addressed by someone without two sets of wings and a tendency to hoard nectar. 'Ah, yes,' she said. 'Or rather, no. But I find bees so fascinating; don't you? Our gardener at home taught me all about them. He had some hives of his own in a corner of the garden, and he showed me how everything worked. In fact, I should really like to be a beekeeper one day.'

'Indeed?' said Lord Emsworth, brightening considerably. Gone were all thoughts of unnecessary portraits, and even his jacket had ceased to irritate him. This girl, he felt, was not just Sound on Bees, she was obviously an expert on the subject. He knew from his own experience that being talked at by gardeners was one of the most reliable ways of acquiring the necessary knowledge for any kind of undertaking. Gardeners, and to some extent butlers and pig men, shared among them most of the information a man might ever need, and it was sure to spread to anyone who stood near them long enough.

Summoning all his conversational skills, he continued: 'Interesting creatures, bees. Not many people understand them. My sister, Lady Constance—you've met her, haven't you? Tall, imposing woman, drinks tea and writes a lot of letters—she told me only recently that she has never been able to stand their company. Strange, how different people are.'

The girl nodded, still studying the bees. This spurred him to go on. What a delightful creature, he thought to himself. Such a good listener.

'I see you have already found the bees,' he said. 'I know the daughter of your friend's sister—or rather, I believe your sister's friend is my daughter—no, I've got it wrong somehow. But Connie tells me you are not to marry anyone while you're here, and though I don't see why you would—though I suppose people's tastes differ—I do hope you'll still feel quite welcome here.'

The most pertinent information having been conveyed, he beamed amiably at his guest. The girl looked slightly startled, but after taking some time to puzzle her way through her host's somewhat garbled message, she assured him that at the present time she had no intention whatsoever of marrying anybody.

'I think it's a rather antiquated custom, marriage,' she explained, gazing into the distance. 'I have never understood the point of it. It would be much better if people didn't expect people to go off and get married when they might not feel like it. I mean, some people just aren't the marrying kind, if you know what I mean. Imagine if you didn't have to settle down like that, at least not while you were still young. That's the kind of society I should like to live in. Don't you agree?'

'I most certainly do not,' said Lord Emsworth, with the strong conviction of a man who had for many years wished to live a solitary life, yet whose house was continually used as some sort of dumping-ground for those of the younger generation who had not yet been safely married off to someone with the means to keep them in the way to which they were accustomed.

'I suppose it's a question of character,' mused the girl. 'If you haven't met someone who is right for you, what's the point of getting married on the off chance? Far better, then, to spend the time with your family, instead of running off somewhere all on your own.'

Lord Emsworth pondered this. Before his dazedly blinking eyes swam the sudden spectre of Unmarried Youth, and that spectre showed a remarkable similarity to his younger son Frederick. Only recently shipped off to America in consequence of his marriage to Niagara 'Aggie' Donaldson, daughter of Mr Donaldson of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits, Freddie had spent much of his unmarried life at Blandings Castle, having been banished there every time his exploits in the metropolis threatened to cause any kind of blot to appear on the family escutcheon. And now this dangerous political firebrand, disguised as a harmless creature made of tweed and girlish laughter, proposed to bring him back! Of course, she had not actually expressed a wish to dissolve all existing matrimonial ties around the world, but looked like a girl with Ideals, and Lord Emsworth knew well enough how Fate worked. No sooner would the world erupt into chaos and unwed bliss, than his younger son would find some reason to furnish himself with a one-way ticket to England's green and pleasant land and once more establish himself at Blandings Castle as a permanent feature of the county, forever interrupting conversations about weather, crops and pigs in order to peddle his donaldsonian wares. Aggie Threepwood ( _née_ Donaldson) had been the unwitting saviour of Lord Emsworth's dreams of freedom from younger sons, and a world in which she did not have a legal claim on Freddie frightened him.

Now, to some of us, this would not appear to be an earth-shaking catastrophe. The callous sort of reader may shrug indifferently and wonder what all the fuss was about, the grounds around Blandings Castle being spacious enough to hide a whole cadre of younger sons among its rolling lawns. The more warm-hearted readers might possibly wrinkle their brows in concern and ask themselves whether Lord Emsworth was not being rather selfish in denying his offspring the cool balm of his fatherly regard, were the offspring in question to wake up one day and find himself unmoored and unmarried, a stranger in a strange land.

The truth, however unpleasant for sensitive souls to ponder, was that just as the Hon. Freddie Threepwood had developed something of an allergic reaction to Blandings Castle, having been sent there to be scolded only when life was already bleak and miserable, his father had developed a similar reaction to his younger son, so that as soon as he heard the latter's cheery 'What ho, guv'nor!' he instinctively suspected some mischief, and retreated to either the library or the Empress's sty. Neither place provided sustainable accommodation for the longer term, however, and so we must ask ourselves, could we truly blame him for shuddering at the thought of his son as a more permanent resident at Blandings Castle?

More than a bit shaken, Lord Emsworth excused himself hastily and staggered across that part of the green and pleasant land which lay between him and his ancestral home. He located a French window conveniently placed at ground level, and flung it open. He found himself in one of those indistinguishable rooms filled with stuffed chairs and rickety tea-tables and Louis XVI wall mirrors. He also found his sister Constance there. She was not used to people barging in through the windows, despite their French origin, and it was only thanks to generations of good breeding that she managed to keep her tea in her cup instead of throwing it at the intruder's face. As she noticed who it was, it became obvious that she regretted curbing this instinct.

'What do you want?' she asked, with perhaps less cordiality than one might have hoped.

'That girl,' said Lord Emsworth, pointing with a shaking finger in the general direction of the gardens. 'She is a dangerous political firebrand! She must be stopped!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' advised his sister. 'I know her mother. No one in that family has had any political leanings for decades, and certainly not modern ones.'

'But she told me herself, she doesn't want people to marry people!'

'To marry whom?'

'Anyone, I suppose.'

A blank look was the only reply he got, and it occurred to Lord Emsworth that in the heat of the moment he might have been a trifle unclear. He tried to explain. 

'I was talking to her about bees,' he said. 'I don't quite remember how the topics shifted, but I distinctly heard her say something about marrying someone. Or rather, not marrying someone. I don't recall if she especially mentioned Frederick, though—the idea really worried me, so I thought I had better come and tell you all about it. Which, well, there you have it. Something ought to be done. I will not have Frederick mooning about here again if I can help it.'

Lady Constance sighed as her brother wandered off into the garden again, possibly to stare at his pig. Of his explanation she had heard half and understood even less of it. How her nephew Frederick had become involved she dared not even think. For a moment she wondered if it would not have been easier to send the girl away, have some photographer take a surprise snap-shot of the head of the family and let everyone pretend it was a way of keeping up with the times. But that thought soon receded. She had her responsibilities; there had already been some talk in the neighbourhood of the state of the portrait gallery at Blandings Castle, and she knew with absolute surety that any apparatus that captured his Lordship in his natural habitat was sure to show him looking even more untidy and fluffy-minded than usual. No, a painter was the type of person to employ, someone who could take the time to appreciate and record those few precious moments when Lord Emsworth showed signs of an inner life consisting of more than slightly misremembered quotes from Augustus Whiffle on the Care of the Pig.

There was nothing more to be said about it. The portrait was a necessity. Lady Constance set down her tea cup and went to find her guest to see how soon she could begin painting.

 

* * *

 

However faithful to the truth the chronicler wishes to stay, some parts of it are best only mentioned in passing, or the reader would soon grow restless. Is there, they might find themselves asking, any point at all in reading the same sequence of events repeatedly, or is the slim volume in our hands the result of an unfortunate mishap on the printer's part, where the same chapter was printed twice or more? Thus, in order to keep the audience wide awake, we must not dwell on the impressive capacity for evasion that Lord Emsworth showed in the following days, the tireless efforts of Lady Constance to intercept him, and the somewhat puzzled appearance of Jane Campbell in rooms were she had been promised an artistic subject and found none. Instead, we may only very quickly note the embarrassing fact that the portrait of Lord Emsworth, for over a week, remained unpainted.

This must not be taken to mean that the man in question had abandoned all pretence at hospitality and started running whenever he saw his guest advancing on him, colour tubes and brushes at the ready. He simply did his best not to be in paintable situations when they met. Other than that, he was amiability itself, and found that, once the easel was out of sight, Miss Campbell was in many aspects a twin soul, who would much rather spend her time outdoors than indoors, and was especially fond of bees. He spent many hours discussing pigs with her (dressed in muddy old tweeds that his sister said made him look like a crooked gamekeeper on the run from the law), or gardening (wearing a straw hat the size of a small wagon wheel). One or two times they had taken a closer look at the new beehive, Lord Emsworth feeling quite secure in the knowledge that the necessary protective clothing made even his general contours vague and impossible to pin down on paper, should the sudden artistic urge strike his companion. He began to feel that when it came to her hidden depths, mostly they contained valuable information on the care and feeding of the bee.

There remained, for a little while, the awkward matter of Miss Campbell's wish to bring down the fire of the heavens upon Earth and cleanse it from impurities—or rather, her indifference to marriage, which at first had, as we know, shaken Lord Emsworth to his core. As they got to know each other better, he had at last ventured an offhand remark concerning younger sons, and the optimum safety distance between them and their parents being something along the line of one ocean's width. This distance, he implied, would be much harder to uphold if the son in question were to be free of matrimonial bonds tying him to his new homeland.

'Oh!' said Miss Campbell, apparently surprised that he had bothered to remember her radical plans for the future. 'Well,' she added, 'when I said people ought not to marry, I mostly meant myself. Mother keeps wanting to bring me together with unmarried artists of noble birth, but most of those are really boring, and I wouldn't marry them if they paid me.'

Lord Emsworth could not argue against such a succinct manner of reasoning, and so he merely nodded a number of times to indicate his full and complete understanding of the matter. 

'Oh, I do wish I could stay out here forever,' sighed Miss Campbell after they had taken a stroll across the lawn to wave at the Empress. 

Lord Emsworth's brow wrinkled. 'You mustn't do that, my dear,' he cautioned. 'You'll catch a cold. At least come in for tea.'

'I didn't mean it like that. I meant here at Blandings. I wish I didn't need to paint that dashed portrait, but I promised my mother I would.'

'Doubtless she has some reason for her wish,' said Lord Emsworth, who could not quite fathom why some woman he had never met might be so invested in a painting she would never see. 

'Oh, she does!' exclaimed the girl. 'She wants to promote me as the new Woman Painter, and as soon as I have the official approval of Lady Constance I shall have to spend the rest of my life depicting Small Child with Toy and Man's Best Friend and Lady So-And-So on the Eve of her Marriage to Lord Whatsisname, until I give up and marry someone myself out of pure boredom. I would much rather keep bees, but that takes capital, and my mother is not fond of bees. She was stung once, by a wasp.'

They shook their heads in concert, baffled at the lack of entomological insight that would lead someone to write off an entire species of buzzing insect based on the rash act of a member of another, though equally buzzing, species. Tragical, their glances seemed to say. But then, what can you expect with the world the way it is?

Matters came to a head on a day that seemed so plagued with rain that even the clouds were looking drenched and soggy and everyone who knew what was good for them stayed indoors. Lady Constance had, through some intricate trickery and tempting placement of books by the esteemed Mr Whiffle, managed to corner her brother in a room with good lighting, and made sure that Jane knew where to find him. Now, with a feeling that nothing got done without her overseeing it, she sat down next to the easel to keep an eye on the proceedings.

When Jane Campbell arrived, she was met by something closely resembling one of those scenes from the play _Macbeth_ where Macbeth is stalling and the lady of the house keeps telling him to get on with it. Over Lord Emsworth's head had settled a cloud of gloom; however, he seemed somewhat resigned and prepared to agree with the Bard that if it were done when 'twas done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. 

Silence reigned for a while in the room as Jane set to work making sketches. Sadly, its reign was not much longer than that of the famed Scottish king. 

It is of course true that different artists need a different amount of peace and quiet in order to work efficiently. Still, it is almost universally acknowledged that the concentration of the artist is helped greatly by a lack of butlers disturbing the scene with news about pigs, a fact of which Jane soon became aware.

'Beach!' said Lord Emsworth, sitting up straighter and completely destroying his pose as said butler arrived. 'What is it, Beach? Is anything the matter?' Seldom has an earl sounded so eager to know the status of the household, and Beach did not disappoint.

'Mr Bartlett, the pig man, wanted to see you, m'lord.'

'He wanted to see me? What for?'

'He was not inclined to tell me, at first, feeling the news should come from him personally, m'lord, but after I convinced him of the necessity of him waiting outside the house—'

'Outside? What did he want? Is there anything the matter with the Empress?'

'I regret to inform your lordship that the Empress has acquired a bee sting on her left flank. I am told that it is not actively dangerous to the animal, but at Mr Bartlett's recommendation I have attempted to contact the nearest veterinary surgeon, a Mr Wellesley. Apparently he was out hunting, but he will look in on us as soon as he is free. His housekeeper said—'

The words of Mr Wellesley's housekeeper were not saved for posterity, drenched as they were by the sounds an elderly earl makes when he is attempting to pick his way through top hats, easels, tea-tables, etc. At last he managed to break free and make a dash for the nearest exit.

'This is ridiculous', said Lady Constance, rising from her chair. 'My patience is wearing thin already; if I have to take another day of this I shall scream. Now, Jane, I am going to London by the next train. I shall be back tomorrow. If there is still no finished portrait by the time I return, I shall have to drag my brother into town myself and find an artist there. I have been very lenient with you so far, but you cannot expect me to recommend you to my friends and neighbours if you are unable to make your subject sit still for long enough to paint him. Is that clear?'

Her face as she asked this made it very clear indeed that the question was rhetorical, and that Jane had better nod meekly if she knew what was best for her. Jane, who did indeed know this, nodded meekly, and Lady Constance swept away. 

There is nothing quite as empty as a chair with an easel in front of it, distinctly lacking an earl. Jane was acutely aware of this, and equally acutely aware of the fact that if she failed to finish the portrait on time, she would be shipped home with no letter of recommendation, and would have to find some other benevolent member of the nobility to cling to. It was all very well to say that she would rather not paint at all, but the alternative always seemed to involve marrying someone, and as she had told Lord Emsworth, this she did not want. It was all very tiresome.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, and it may have been true that Jane had not spent overmuch time earlier trying to figure out alternative means of employment, but with the new feeling of doom very much impending, she did some serious thinking. Five or ten minutes later—for she was a quick thinker, when she wanted—she had a plan, and in pursuance of this, she set out in search of her host. Gone was the standing stone, and in its place was a girl who knew what she wanted from the future, and meant to get it. The bees would have approved, had they seen her.

She found Lord Emsworth, as expected, in the pig sty, wringing his hands above the broad back of the Empress, the pig man Bartlett making soothing noises off to one side. Knowing that she had no time to lose, she put the matter to him straight.

'I was wondering,' she said, scratching the pig behind its ears. 'How much is it worth to you to be excused from sitting for that portrait?'

'How much?' echoed Lord Emsworth, who seldom thought in monetary terms.

'If I promise to handle the portrait all on my own, would you give me enough money to establish a couple of beehives?'

'A couple of—'

'Beehives.'

'If you promise—'

'No more sitting for that portrait. I can't guarantee anything about future ones, but this one will be finished without you.'

'Without me?' said Lord Emsworth, imagining an empty canvas having pride of place in the portrait gallery. Connie would not approve, he feared.

'It would still be a portrait of you, I would just have to work from the sketches I've already made.'

'Ah, I see,' said Lord Emsworth, who did not. 'Sketches, you say? Indeed. Quite. And beekeeping, a very commendable occupation. I myself—well. Very well. Do you want me to—'

Never in the history of Shropshire pig sties has a cheque been presented and signed so quickly, its owner leaning precariously against the window sill and complaining that he did not remember where to put the 'h' in 'eighty'. After a few moments, the deed was done, and Jane sped away across the lawn with the determination of a girl who knows that all her hopes and dreams hinge on how quickly she can scrabble together a Great Work of Art from a small heap of drawings of Bees, Baronet and Pig (mostly Pig). Meanwhile, Lord Emsworth began joyously planning his itinerary for the next few days. To a startling degree, his plans consisted of wearing whatever he wanted and not sitting opposite people other than at meal-times. This sounded very promising.

 

* * *

 

When Lady Constance arrived home the next day, weary and travel-stained, she was greeted by an appearance that showed a vague similarity to her young house-guest, if said guest had spent the last decade speaking French and gesticulating wildly among baguettes and loose women in _fin-de-siècle_ Paris. This was an experience Jane Campbell did in fact lack, but she was wearing an ill-fitting painter's smock, with paint on it that matched the stains on her forearms, and a black beret to complete the ensemble. Anyone could see that it was mere politeness that stopped her from smoking a cigarette, shrugging eloquently and going 'oh là là!' at every opportunity. To Jane, who was at least dipped, if not exactly marinated in the French painting _milieu_ , this was business as usual while she worked. To Lady Constance, it felt necessary to take a quick glance at her surroundings in order to reassure herself that she had not taken the wrong train and arrived at the Gare du Nord.

'Oh, Lady Constance, I'm finished with the portrait!' the girl exclaimed. 'I'm so glad I managed to catch you before I leave; do you have a pen on you?'

'A pen?' said her hostess, knowing that she sounded just as slow of thought as her brother, and feeling it keenly.

'For signing my recommendation letter. I've written it all out, so you won't have to worry about phrasing. I'll be off as soon as you've signed it.'

'You're leaving us so soon?' said Lady Constance feebly, knowing that she did not sound as disappointed as politeness demanded.

'I have to', said the girl. 'Mother has found all sorts of people for me to paint'—this was a bald-faced lie which she told unblushingly—'and I feel I have learned so much from my stay here that I'm really looking forward to it. It has been a fascinating learning experience, and I'm so grateful.'

'I see. And the portrait, has Beach—?

'Oh, Beach is hanging it in the gallery as we speak. I would show it to you, but you know how it is—when you're done with something, you really just want to be done with it. Lord Emsworth was really happy, though, and Beach said it really captured the essence of his lordship's personality.'

'Well,' said Lady Constance, feeling a vague sense of unease. 'I'd better go look at it, then.'

'I _do_ hope you'll like it', said Jane, snatching the signed letter from under her pen. 'And now I simply must dash; the train leaves in half an hour. I'll give your best wishes to the family, shall I?'

In less than two minutes, she was out of the house, leaving her hostess feeling as if she had been passed by a very small hurricane. The standing stone of yesterweek had turned into a buzzing bee in a daring leap from metaphor to metaphor. Girls nowadays, she thought vaguely. Something ought to be done about it. And in those clothes! What would her mother say?

 

* * *

 

In the portrait gallery, Beach had affixed the portrait at its place and was taking down the ladder on which he had been standing to do so. He sidled away respectfully, leaving Lady Constance to admire the artwork in solitude. She started to do so, and stifled the kind of expression that her governesses would never have allowed.

'Beach!' she called. 'Beach! Whatever is the meaning of this?'

'M'lady?'

'This—this—' 

With a shaking finger, she indicated the painting. Beach returned to look at it. Had one studied him closely, one might have detected a hint of merriment in his eyes as he inspected the painting.

'Very true to life, m'lady,' he ventured, and slid away in the silent way of butlers who know how to slide away while the sliding is good. 

Lady Constance remained frozen in place in front of the painting, unable to tear her gaze from it. Although not yet framed, it was majestic, both in size and in subject. No one could accuse Jane Campbell of not taking her work seriously. She had spent what must have been close to a bucket of paint on the canvas, doing her best at bringing out the character of its inhabitants. Lady Constance could find no fault in this, much as she would have wished to. As a painting, it was indeed a masterpiece. As a painting of the master of the house, it left something to be desired. Lady Constance raised her voice again.

'Clarence! Clarence! Come here immediately!'

When her brother appeared at last, he looked surprised at the sight of the portrait. 

His sister merely glared at it. 'What on earth is the meaning of this?' she demanded.

'It's the portrait. Jane says it's finished. She finished it today, she said.' Leaning closer, his eyes lit up. 'I had no idea you could do that,' he exclaimed, pointing eagerly at a small coloured blob in the corner of the canvas. 'Marvellous people, artists. I could have sworn I never wore that jacket anymore. And she caught the right hue of the skin, too. Even the mud is the right texture. Marvellous, what these people can do. Look, even the bees are there!'

'You didn't know she had made this—this _travesty_?'

She pointed again at the painting, indicating its contents. The canvas showed the front lawn of Blandings Castle with an artistically arranged tableau of figures. Lord Emsworth was standing to the left, realistically dressed up in tweeds old enough to know better, and a hat that was an affront to humanity. To the right, and dominating the picture—indeed, dominating the entire picture gallery—was the Empress. There could be no doubt whatsoever that the title of Fattest Pig in Shropshire rightly belonged to her. She was massive.

'Marvellous girl, this friend of yours,' said Lord Emsworth. 'She made it absolutely picture perfect. I can see why you recommended her. Everyone who sees this will want to have their pigs painted by her.'

Lady Constance's governesses had frowned on fratricide, even in the most dire circumstances. She reminded herself of this as her brother ambled away, possibly to share his good news with his pig, and so she must content herself with a glare.

Behind them, the Empress gazed benevolently down from her exalted position, chewing on a potato, and pondered the wonders of life in general, while the bees buzzed around her in the friendliest of ways.


End file.
